Unlike most left-leaning journalists, who are just now discovering the Benghazi story because they’re collective noses are out of joint because the Obama Administration left a paper trail proving they lied to reporters over the Susan Rice talking points, Dowd also focuses on some of the less-reported outrages over the State Department’s deadly negligence in the months leading up to the attacks:

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Yet in this hottest of hot spots, the State Department’s minimum security requirements were not met, requests for more security were rejected, and contingency plans were not drawn up, despite the portentous date of 9/11 and cascading warnings from the C.I.A., which had more personnel in Benghazi than State did and vetted the feckless Libyan Praetorian Guard. When the Pentagon called an elite Special Forces team three hours into the attack, it was training in Croatia — decidedly not a hot spot.

She goes on to accuse Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of “rushing to make the flimsy Benghazi post permanent as a sign of good faith with Libyans, even as it sat ringed by enemies.”

Dowd, saw first-hand how an audacious president lied to reporters and the American people (and to a Grand Jury, for that matter) and then responded with self-centered, emotional indignation when the press corp dared to challenge the defination of the word “is.”

She know draws on that experience and declares that a serious case of “déjà vu” is now infiltrating the capital as scandal control mechanisms are fully deployed:

The capital is in the throes of déjà vu and preview as it plunges back into Clinton Rules, defined by a presidential aide on the hit ABC show “Scandal” as damage control that goes like this: “It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true, it’s old news.”